Microsoft, SAP integrate in digital transformation drive

Coca-Cola and other major enterprises have reacted positively to the plan for Microsoft and SAP to team up.

Aiming to be a driving force in digital transformation, Microsoft and SAP are working to clear the road for enterprises pursuing digital transformation.

This initiative will involve the two giants going to market together with joint solutions, while also working together on SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud services on Azure.

Major global organisations are in support of the decision to work together closely, the likes of Coca-Cola and Costco have expressed a positive outlook.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said: As technology transforms every business and every industry, organizations are looking for the right platforms and trusted partners to help accelerate their digital transformation… Building on our longtime partnership, Microsoft and SAP are harnessing each other’s products to not only power our own organizations, but to empower our enterprise customers to run their most mission-critical applications and workloads with SAP S/4HANA on Azure.”

Factors that are encouraging organisations to place business-critical systems in the cloud include the enhancement of customer relationships, new business models and streamlined operations.

SAP CEO Bill McDermott, said: We are taking our partnership to the next level with this new capability to run SAP S/4HANA in the Microsoft Azure environment… The world’s significant businesses trust Microsoft and SAP. Together, we will help companies win the customer-driven growth revolution.”

Enterprise customers have been looking to providers to offer a clear and secure route to making the digital transformation jump, and this initiative is intended to provide this fast-track.

Barry Simpson, senior vice president and chief information officer at The Coca-Cola Company, said: “The strategic partnership announced between Microsoft and SAP is an extremely important development for the Coca-Cola System… The value of aligned engineering, sales and delivery between these two strategic partners will allow our system to accelerate our digital agenda. This is a very positive and exciting development for us.”